MacMadame

Don't worry, we're not really debating.... just being anal about wording. :lol0:

I think a lot of people have been taught that exercise is a very limited set of activities and that they are almost always boring or unpleasant. For me, I learned that in gym class in Jr. High! But anything that moves your body is exercise. We really need to be active, but that doesn't have mean joining a gym or working out to exercise DVDs. It can be dancing or martial arts or gardening or swimming or joining a softball league. Some of those are better at burning calories or toning your body or building endurance than others but they are all better than doing nothing. I think making activity an important part of your life means finding a hobby that you love that is active in nature. Now, I went and fell in love with triathlons. So I bike, swim and run and do core strengthening. IOW my activities are more what people think of when they think of exercising. But the important thing is that I love it so I do it. That's the key, IMO.

Maybe I should take my show in the road? :lol0: It's funny... I can't navigate my way out of a paper bag, but I'm pretty good at figuring out what things weigh and/or what volume they take up. I guess all those years of yo-yo dieting were good for something!

It's a controversial area. The studies aren't clear. Plus they were done on people with normal ghrelin levels who had partial gastrectomies so they aren't 100% applicable to us. However, any stressful situation can cause problems with focus and memory. I started flaking out about 1 month pre-op and I'm still about the same.

Once your swelling goes down, you should be able to eat about 1/2 a cup. That is less than bypass people. I've eaten with them and I'm always shocked by how much they eat! :lol0: You can eat *anything* with a sleeve once you are healed enough. Some people do have foods that bug them, but that's pretty rare because there is no stoma for stuff to get stuck and we have a normal stomach. Some programs don't want you to eat a lot of carbs during the weight loss phase. But I think that's up to you. I wanted to lose as fast as possible and my body likes Protein better than carbs. So I haven't been eating stuff like rice or bread very much. I still had them occasionally. Like I had sushi a couple of times. And sometimes when I get a McDonald's snack wrap, I eat some of the wrap. I am supposed to be adding whole grain bread and Pasta back into my diet but, honestly, I've never been into bread so I haven't done it.

I was self-pay too. But I wanted to stay local and I was lucky because one of the premier sleeve surgeons in the country is local to me. So I paid a bit more, but it was worth it to me. I didn't pay $25000 though. That's crazy for a sleeve!

I have a suitcase that can hold more than 50 lb. After being caught at the airport with it overweight a few times, I have now gotten packing it down to a science. I can tell by lifting if it has 49.5 lb. in it or 50.5 lb. :lol0:

It's better to use cottage cheese anyway. Here's a link to the test: Bariatric Resource Center: A4 The Cottage Cheese Test, BSCI Articles, A4 It was designed originally for RnY.

As I say all the time, even over there, I hate the software. But I go there too for various reasons. There's no reason why there can't be more than one successful sleeve board, after all. Even if some people over there seem slightly threatened by this board's existence.

My BMI was 41 when I started looking in WLS. It was lower when I had the surgery but that's because it took 7 months and I lost 32 lb. during that time.

I've had two c-sections too. This was definitely easier. Though I still wasn't ready to return to work when I did. I think that was mostly the hiatal hernia repair too.

Yesterday I did: AM: Long run - 8 miles! PM: Bike ride. 14.6 miles of hills!

It's always tasted salty. It has nothing to do with the surgery.

Billy Joel definitely went through an asshole period though. One my HS friends lived in his town and had all these stories of diva behavior. The townspeople were not amused with him.

Which have ads on them so it's indirectly making money to encourage clicking between the various forums. :lol0:

I had my gallbladder out too. It's the same as it always was after surgery. So no worries there. I went back to work at my desk job at 1.5 weeks and wish I'd taken 2 weeks. But I had a slow start. Lots of people go back in less than a week. OTOH, why do it if you can avoid it? I think staying home until you are off liquids makes your life a lot easier.

It also varies by how much weight you have to lose. Here are some guidelines... they are all a bit different so the idea is to measure yourself against a bunch and see if you are doing okay by most of them even if not by all of them. Early out .5 to 1 lb. a day, then settling into 2-3 lb. a week, then slowing down to 1-2 lb. a week. 10-20 lb. a month (but heavyweights can lose more and lightweights often lose less after the first big chunk comes off) Lose 50% of your excess weight by 3 months and 80% by 6 months. That ones a bit aggressive and I don't think it works for the SMO as well as for the MO. Use this planner to plot your weight loss against someone's estimate: ObesityHelp - Post-Op Weight Loss Planner The other thing to keep in mind is that most people don't lose in a steady manner. It's more like a stair step. For example, one month I was losing like this 4-2-4-2. So my average was 3 lb. a week, just like the predictors said. But the 2 lb. weeks were annoying. Plus, then I shifted to only losing 1 lb. on the slow weeks. Ugh. But I got there just fine and all my worrying was for nothing!

Some cheese tastes salty to me too.

I think it's the lack of ghrelin. Hormones are SO powerful. I knew that intellectually but, of course, I was sure that they didn't rule ME. Ha! In my case, it's not produce so much. I've always liked it. But I also ate a lot of junk and much of it disgusts me now. So it's changed my thinking about food a little, just not dramatically. The big difference for me is movement. I have to be moving. I get antsy if I sit too long. I used to ALWAYS sit. I never stood if I could sit and, if I had to stand, I'd lean on something. It's like my brain was telling me to take it easy and conserve energy. Now it tells me to MOVE IT! I think, though, that you also have to be open to it. I decided to see where the surgery took me even before I had it. I see people still trapped in their old ways of thinking and it makes me sad because I feel like they've missed this great opportunity. But everyone is different, of course. I doubt they are sad if they lose their weight. :lol0:

The other day I ate 2000 calories! Luckily I burned about 1200 doing exercise. But it was scary. I'm weaning off my PPI and I have acid and it feels like hunger. I know it's not and I can ignore it. But eating something soothes my throat. So I have a little something. And then a little more. It's crazy! I'm supposed to give myself a month for everything to settle down so I'll just have to deal for a month, I guess.

My doc said I could go as low as 110 or 105. I thought he was INSANE! But I'm at 115 now and 110 isn't looking so bad. I think some docs want you to go a bit low so that you have some wiggle room for bounce back. But if you don't do it, 10 years from now, you'll be in your 50s and still not have a degree. My mom got her degree in her 40s and now she's a VP of IT at George Mason University. Go talk to her and tell her I sent you! :thumbdown: Seriously, it would be better to have known what you wanted when you were in your 20s, but you've got years and years of working life ahead of you so it's too soon to give up! As for your mom, this is what I think is going on.... she wants great things for you so when you first bring up the ideas, she's excited. But then she goes home and starts being a worry wart. Because she doesn't want bad things to happen to you. She should really keep her thoughts to herself and be self-aware enough to realize it's her own hang-ups speaking, but just because it's negative, doesn't mean it's not coming from a caring place. I'd just tell her flat out to keep her negative thoughts to herself as they don't help. Sometimes you have to set boundaries with your parents.

Speaking as a moderator, I have read every post in this thread and I don't think anyone is picking on you or making fun of you. A few are making fun of your arguments. Which is allowed. We attack the idea, not the person. If someone actually attacks you, then we'll do something, but not liking MJ and not understanding why people are saddened by his death and finding your arguments defending him to be illogical is not a personal attack.

Yep. You go through clothes much faster as you go down too. Oh, and I hear you on the lack of sleep. Elisabeth. I've been getting up at 5 am and going to bed at midnight!

I think the hypertext is part of some sort of ad system and Alex gets money if people click on the links. Those servers do need to fed. :lol0:

Congrats! Um, doesn't NSV meant Non-scale Victory?